Firms In Britain Research Articles

Organizations offering line manager training in mental health and presenteeism: A secondary data analysis of organizational‐level data

AbstractPresenteeism (working while ill) due to mental ill‐health is estimated to be one of the largest economic costs to employers. We seek to investigate the relationship between line manager training in mental health (MH) and presenteeism trends at work. The aim of this study was twofold: (i) to examine the relationship between the provision of a new and emerging workplace MH and wellbeing (MH&WB) initiative – line manager (LM) training in MH – and presenteeism as reported by organizations and (ii) to examine the reasons for presenteeism, and organizational‐level strategies used to action it. To address these questions, we conducted a secondary data analysis using panel data from 7139 firms in England over four time points (2020–2023). Probit regression analysis revealed that organizations offering LM training are less likely to report presenteeism. Our analysis revealed that providing LM training may increase awareness and readiness to tackle presenteeism within the organization, but this does not always translate into actionable strategies. Limitations of the study and recommendations for future research are discussed.

The relationship between line manager training in mental health and organisational outcomes.

Line manager (LM) training in mental health is gaining recognition as an effective method for improving the mental health and wellbeing of workers. However, research predominantly focuses on the impacts of training at the employee-level, often neglecting the broader organisational-level outcomes. Most studies derive insights from LMs using self-reported data, with very few studies examining impacts on organisational-level outcomes. To explore the relationship between LM training in mental health and organisational-level outcomes using company-level data from a diverse range of organisations. This study is a secondary analysis of anonymised panel survey data from firms in England, with data derived from computer-assisted telephone surveys over four waves (2020, 1899 firms; 2021, 1551; 2022, 1904; and 2023, 1902). The analysis merged the four datasets to control for temporal variations. Probit regression was conducted including controls for age of organisation, sector, size, and wave to isolate specific relationships of interest. We found that LM training in mental health is significantly associated with several organisational-level outcomes, including: improved staff recruitment (β = .317, p < .001) and retention (β = .453, p < .001), customer service (β = .453, p < .001), business performance (β = .349, p < .001), and lower long-term sickness absence due to mental ill-health (β = -.132, p < .05). This is the first study to explore the organisational-level outcomes of LM training in mental health in a large sample of organisations of different types, sizes, and sectors. Training LM in mental health is directly related to diverse aspects of an organisations' functioning and, therefore, has strategic business value for organisations. This knowledge has international relevance for policy and practice in workforce health and business performance.

Vocational rehabilitation via social firms: a qualitative investigation of the views and experiences of employees with mental health problems, social firm managers and clinicians

BackgroundEmployment within social firms in the UK is under-developed and under-researched, but a potentially beneficial route to vocational rehabilitation for people with mental health problems. This study explores the views and experiences of employees with mental ill-health, managers of social firms and mental health clinicians, in order to understand the potential value of social firms for the vocational rehabilitation, employment and well-being of people with mental health problems.MethodsSemi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 employees with mental health problems in 11 social firms in England. A focus group and individual interviews were conducted with 12 managers of social firms. Two focus groups were held with 16 mental health clinicians. Data were analysed using thematic analysis.ResultsMost employees expressed very positive views about working in a social firm. In responses from both employees and social firm managers, an overarching theme regarding the supportive ethos of social firms encompassed several related features: openness about mental health issues; peer, team and management support; flexibility; and support to progress and develop skills over time. Managers identified benefits of employing people with mental health problems who were sufficiently recovered. Knowledge of social firms within clinician focus groups was very limited, although clinicians thought they could be a welcome additional vocational resource.ConclusionsHigh levels of job satisfaction among social firm employees may be explained by the supportive ethos of these working environments. Social firms have potential to be a helpful addition to the range of vocational pathways available for people with mental ill-health. Further mixed methods investigations of experiences and outcomes in order to understand who engages with and benefits from this form of vocational rehabilitation would be valuable in informing decisions about scaling up the model.

COMPARING CROWDFUNDING THEORY AND PRACTICE: THE CASE OF TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND

This article analyzes crowdfunding campaigns of technology firms in England. We compare the predictions of crowdfunding theories with empirical evidence. We are particularly focused on factors of campaign success related to indirect signalling (such as the choice of campaign target) by founders that have mixed evidence in existing research as opposed to direct signalling (eg. the number of updates by founders). We are also focused on comparing different cities of UK with regard to crowdfunding. Regression and correlation analyses were used to analyze the connections between different factors and the campaign outcomes. We have found that the campaign target has U-shape effect on success of campaign. For example, the probability of success increases if the threshold value is neither very small or significantly large. This is consistent with the spirit of some theoretical research on crowdfunding. We also find that cities with better access to ultrafast broadband among households and cities with greater number of people with higher education have significantly better results in crowdfunding. We also provide an overview of literature related to informational problems in crowdfunding, highlight gaps and controversial areas and provide some suggestions for future research.

Spatial competition and quality: Evidence from the English family doctor market

We examine whether family doctor firms in England respond to local competition by increasing their quality. We measure quality in terms of clinical performance and patient-reported satisfaction to capture its multi-dimensional nature. We use a panel covering 8 years for over 8000 English general practices. We measure competition as the number of rival doctors within a small distance and control for a large number of potential confounders. We find that increases in local competition are associated with increases in patient satisfaction and to a lesser extent in clinical quality. However, the magnitude of the effect is small.

Energy Efficiency Information and Valuation Practices in Rental Housing

The consensus in the academic literature is that energy efficiency is associated with transaction value premiums, but it is not clear to what extent property appraisers take account of this. We decompose external appraisals of rental housing by international valuation firms in England and the Netherlands in two waves, keeping the samples of valued homes constant between these years. We find a notable change in the behavior of external property appraisers. In England, energy performance does not impact assessed values in 2012, while estimation results for 2015 show a significant discount in assessed values for D-, E- and F- relative to C-labeled dwellings. For the Netherlands, we do not observe a significant relationship between energy efficiency and assessed values in 2010, but in 2015 we find that more energy efficiency leads to higher external valuations.

Does board composition affect the gender pay gap?

By matching a unique firm-level gender pay gap (GPG) data with the corporate board- and firm-characteristics, we find that firms with the presence of foreign directors on board reduce the GPG of the firms in Britain. This result is more pronounced with the profitable firms, and with those that have less than 5000 employees. The findings suggest that policymakers’ emphasis on achieving diversity on the corporate board may also help improve equality in pay.

Corporate Innovation and the Technological Advantage of British Regions in the Interwar Period

This paper investigates the international technological specialization of the British regions in the interwar period. It is based on a novel dataset of more than 8,000 patents granted in the USA to British inventions. The analysis focuses on the impact of the dispersion of corporate innovation on the pattern of regional technological advantage, and contributes to the debate concerning the role of corporate innovation in the international relative decline of the British economy in the interwar period. Overall, the rise of corporate innovation in the largest firms in Britain did play a significant role in the technological profile of the regions. However, corporate innovation was only to a limited extent associated with the technological fields characterised by high technological opportunities.

A Time of Change: Solicitorss Firms in England and Wales

Recession and structural changes to the market for legal services are combining to create a turbulent environment for the solicitors’ profession. The recession has had a significant impact on demand for legal services. Changing fee structures, increased competition, changes to ownership rules and the introduction of new technologies are providing challenges and disruption to traditional forms of practice. Then there are changes to legal aid, which will soon lead to a substantial reduction in legal aid payments to the profession. This presents a particular challenge for traditional legal aid practice.This report sets out the findings of a survey of solicitors’ firms commissioned by the Law Society, Legal Services Board and Ministry of Justice to provide a benchmark of the profession at a time of significant regulatory and legal aid policy changes. The survey was conducted by TNS-BMRB, and achieved a sample of 2,007 solicitors’ firms across England and Wales, ranging from sole practitioners to large corporate firms. Fieldwork was conducted in April and May 2012. To enable a broader range of analyses and fill gaps in the data, the survey data was supplemented by administrative data drawn from the Law Society’s Regis system and legal aid related data from the Legal Services Commission.

Outward facing: W&amp;R Jacob &amp; Co. biscuit labels, 1900-1939

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to explore the marketing strategies and tools used by W&amp;R Jacob &amp; Co. in the first four decades of the twentieth century. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is based on close analysis of W&amp;R Jacob &amp; Co. labels and other primary material supported by secondary sources. Findings – The paper explores the company's initial focus on the development of an export market and their competition with similar firms in England for that business. It reveals the ways in which the firm contributed to the development of product naming and labelling conventions within the biscuit industry in this period. Labelling and product presentation strategies are examined to show methods of origination that coped with a prolific rate of introduction of new lines. Political change in Ireland in the 1920s and 1930s imposed limits on Jacob's markets and precipitated a reorientation of labelling strategies. Originality/value – The paper is based on extensive original research and makes a solid contribution to the understanding of new product development and marketing strategies within the biscuit industry in the first four decades of the twentieth century. It also furthers understanding of the effects of Irish Free State policies on export industry.

How 'Buzz' Reduces Uncertainty for New Start-Up Businesses

Although the mechanisms through which entrepreneurial knowledge is transferred are poorly understood, we argue that face-to-face networks and buzz is a mechanism to transfer the knowledge of from whom to take advice before starting a business. business advice to new firm founders is a good example to study buzz outside of clusters and pipelines because new firm founders are not in any particular cluster and pipelines to global advisory services are generally absent.. The study examined the interaction between place and business advice was examined through surveys of 599 firms in England and 381 firms in Catalonia (Spain). Our models exploit the denominator from a heteroskedastic probit to capture the local variation in uncertainty by placing the source of the variation in the denominator. Normally heteroskedasticity is thought of as a problem, but in this case, it can serve to show how the impact of advice varies. Our findings show that buzz influences both advice taking and the uncertainty surrounding advice to show empirically a mechanism that links buzz to collective institutions outside of clusters. While our focus was on the impact of place and buzz, there were strong impacts from policy on the take-up of advice in Catalonia, but policy did not change the variations or uncertainty. buzz and policy do not directly trade-off since they have differing impacts.

A quantitative cross-modal analysis of transportation firms’ transaction costs – Are airlines any different?

This paper applies a top-down approach to transaction cost measurement to identify the size of the transaction sector within types of transport firms in Britain, including rail and bus operating firms but also and importantly of airlines. Whilst this cross-sector analysis shows differences for a snapshot in time, it also reveals changes of transaction costs over time. Our results suggest that airlines employ a relatively large number of transaction staff. However, in contrast to the train and bus operators, airlines in Britain have managed to reduce the level of their transaction costs substantially over time both in relation to output and operating cost.

Large Law Firms, Sophisticated Clients, and the Regulation of Conflicts of Interest in England and Wales

For over a decade large law firms in England and Wales, through their representative body the City of London Law Society (CLLS), have lobbied for the relaxation of the professional conduct rules governing conflicts of interest. They argue that this is required to meet client needs, particularly sophisticated clients, and to accommodate the economic realities of a changing legal services market. They are not alone: in both the US and Canada there has been a similar push by the profession to deregulate conflicts of interest.

Changes in transaction costs over time – The case of franchised train operating firms in Britain

The significant effects of competition, franchising and vertical separation of rail infrastructure from train operation on the level of transaction costs are often anecdotally described in the literature. Although it has been shown that franchising has an effect on total costs, there is very little empirical evidence on whether franchising has an impact on the level of transaction costs over time. One reason for this is, of course, the limited systematic work on the measurement of transaction costs in railways. This paper builds on recent work that applied a top-down approach to transaction cost measurement to identify the size of the transaction sector within rail firms in different EU countries. In cross-country comparison particularly, British train operators turned out to be associated with high levels of transaction costs. However, since the previous work focused on a single fiscal year it did not show any longitudinal effects within one institutional environment or country. Therefore, this paper focuses on British franchised passenger train operating firms and aims to reveal how the transaction sector within those firms has changed over the period 1996/1997–2007/2008 and whether the franchise contract details, such as contract length or the franchising regime, matter. It also aims to estimate the resulting changes in the level of transaction costs and their share in total operating costs for the first time.

Comparing four bankruptcy prediction models: Logit, quadratic interval logit, neural and fuzzy neural networks

Bankruptcy prediction is one of the major business classification problems. In this paper, we use four different techniques (1) logit model, (2) quadratic interval logit model, (3) backpropagation multi-layer perceptron (i.e., MLP), and (4) radial basis function network (i.e., RBFN) to predict bankrupt and non-bankrupt firms in England. The average hit ratio of four methods range from 91.15% to 77.05%. The original classification accuracy and the validation test results indicate that RBFN outperforms the other models.

The employment of graduates within small and medium sized firms in England

This paper reports a research study prompted by the uneven distribution of graduates between small and large businesses. In particular, it sought to understand the main drivers or impediments to recruitment of graduates by small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) through an in-depth study of a matched sample of small firms employing and not employing graduates. It also sought to understand the nature of the benefits which might accrue to an SME from employing graduates. While some of the barriers can be attributed to ‘market failure’ in the sense that there were gaps in information available to SMEs and deficiencies in recruitment processes, others are cultural and concerned with the nature of the small business model.

Francesca Carnevali, Europe's Advantage: Banks and Small Firms in Britain, France, Germany, and Italy since 1918 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, 240 pp. £59)

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Overhaul of the British Legal System Can Sharpen Competition

The British legal system is on the verge of sweeping, historic changes. Parliament is expected to act soon on a reform bill, which will transform the legal profession, the legal aid system, and the organizational and financial structure of law firms in England and Wales. Because London is the home of many of the world's largest global law firms, these changes can have widespread effects on the nature of competition, not only in the United Kingdom, but in the European Union and around the world. This paper traces the development of the legislation, describes its contents, and focuses on the possibility of outside ownership of law firms by non-lawyers, and corporations traded publicly on stock exchanges. It reviews the brief experience of outside ownership of law firms in Australia and implications for lawyers and law firms in the United States. The paper observes that, because the potential scope and depth of the regulatory changes and the competitive effects are too important to ignore, developments need to be monitored and studied carefully. The paper concludes that, although the time is not ripe for such regulatory changes in the United States, support can develop as business opportunities materialize. The future is certain to bring further debates and, perhaps, action to allow more flexible business organizations and new ways to dispense legal services to businesses and the general public.

Do more heavily regulated economies have poorer performing new ventures? Evidence from Britain and Spain

We test two alternative perspectives on the start-up size and subsequent growth of new firms in a heavily regulated (HR) economy and a lightly regulated (LR) economy. The first argues that, in an HR economy, there will be fewer new firms, and those that do start will be larger than those in an LR economy, but they will grow more slowly. A second perspective is that regulation does not influence the scale of entrepreneurship – merely its distribution between that which is registered and that which is not registered. Using parallel datasets for HR Spain and LR Britain we find some support for both perspectives. Specifically we find that registered new firms in Britain do start smaller than in Spain and do grow faster. However, when both registered and unregistered firms are included, these differences disappear.

New small firm survival in England

This paper investigates the determinants of the survival, between 2001 and 2004, of 622 small firms in England. Seventy one percent of these firms were less than 5 years old in 2001. Prior work by industrial economists has primarily focussed upon factors such as profitability and exit barriers. In contrast, this paper adopts a more managerial approach by examining whether the human capital of the business owner and organisational variables explain survival and non-survival. Our results suggest the founder's education and bank finance promote firm survival. Firms which compete on price, or report being financially constrained at start-up, are much less likely to survive.